


lower, where the pleasant fountains lie

by icicaille



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Banter, Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:47:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicaille/pseuds/icicaille
Summary: “I wonder if you would allow me leave to use my mouth on you,” Francis said.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 53
Kudos: 163





	lower, where the pleasant fountains lie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/gifts).



> This is a totally indulgent and breezy PWP (following the recently wildly popular headcanon that Francis Crozier is a champion rimmer) for Chloe, who is the best and deserves all her heart's desires. 
> 
> Title from Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis._

“I wonder if you would allow me leave,” Francis said into the soft and springy crease where James’ thigh met his hip. Splayed between James’ spread-open knees, he busied himself with applying his mouth to every strip of skin he could reach.

“Leave _to_?” James arched his back with a long-practiced coquetry. Of course, that kind of thing tended to work better on those above and beneath him: dissolute scions who thought he could be bought for a coupe of champagne, wide-eyed mates who thrilled to hear him speak of Zhenjiang. But Francis, curmudgeon though he was, deserved James’ finest efforts. “I have permitted you a great deal of leave already, you know. You are being rather neglectful.” He gestured at his cock, deserted by Francis some minutes prior.

Francis peered up at him and gave the tip of James’ cock a single lick, which earned him a kick in the ribs. “Leave to use my mouth on you,” he said.

“Are you not at present?”

Francis pressed his thumb to the opening of James’ arse in reply.

“I see,” James said. His mouth had gone dry. “I did not take you for the sort.”

“Have you had it before?”

James bit back a laugh. “My dear Francis. My _dearest_ Francis. Only from scores of men.” In truth, it had been somewhere closer to five. “And from one particular fellow in Malta a dozen times alone—my word! Quite a talented tongue he possessed.”

Francis’ face bore the livid beginnings of a blush.

“On _Clio_ , even, Dundy and I would often—”

“ _James_!” Crimson suffused the high points of Francis’ cheeks. He seized James around the thighs, tight enough to bruise. James’ quiescent cock stirred. “I do not like it when you tell me of other men you have had.”

“Oh, but you are the very best of them,” James said, smooth as honey, putting to rights the lock of hair that had fallen over Francis’ forehead. He did delight in teasing Francis so. The last vestige of his vanity—though he could not say what drove him to such embellishments when Francis made his desire plain. Francis’ desire was a furnace that James could stoke to eruption with a word, a breath, a bitten lip.

“Better than that blackguard from Malta?”

“Well.” James considered, rubbing a foot back and forth over Francis’ bare back. “He did offer a good showing. I think you must endeavor to vanquish him.”

Francis’ brow curved upward. “With ease.”

“You are being rather bold— _oh_." Francis had returned his mouth to the interior of James’ thigh. “I feel I should volley that question back to you. Satiate my curiosity.”

“You may ask me when I’m through,” Francis said, arranging James’ legs over his shoulders. His breath blew hot on James’ skin as he spread James open for his perusal.

“I say! Such cheek.” James’ tone was light, even as he felt himself clench in anticipation. It was natural, of course, when nothing had made its way there in years, save Francis’ cock and fingers—any touch was bound to liberate some long-smothered pleasurable instinct. “Yes, that’s very good,” he said at the first cautious brush of Francis’ tongue, thinking to tender some assurance. Surely Francis’ tastes had heretofore run a sight more virtuous.

Francis made an indistinct _hm_ noise, then swept the flat of tongue across James’ arse in persistent southerly strokes. After a spell, he bent closer, fastened the seal of his mouth, and sucked like he would James’s cock. James cried out, disbelieving. Sweat beaded at his temples. Soon, he had grown slack enough to admit more under Francis’ attention. He clapped a hand over his mouth as Francis curled his tongue and pushed past the entrance, lingering to unfurl and stretch James wide.

Francis’ tongue in him. James did not trust himself to speak. It was more than he’d ever dreamt, even when perverse visions of Francis bending him over _Terror_ ’s wardroom table occupied his daydreams _._ More than he’d ever believed Francis would give him, more than he—an ornamental companion at best—deserved.

Francis withdrew his tongue and thrust back in, pushing steadily until nearly all of it was enveloped. “Fuck me,” James said, breathless. “Fuck me, bugger me, anything, please. _Please_ , Francis.” Francis’ name escaped his lips again and again like an invocation, a supplication, before Francis finally retreated. James looked down across his own body—his cock, where it trickled onto his belly—and shuddered at the sight of Francis’ red, wet mouth. Their rasping breaths converged in rhythm.

“You’ll get my tongue and nothing more,” Francis said, unmoved. “Quiet, now.”

James gaped at him. “Francis, I—I can’t. It won’t be enough. I haven’t before,” he said, cursing himself and his jabber. Surely Francis would scold him for such a cheap trick. In that singular, gentle way of his, where one glance perceived in an instant the sum of James’ failings and triumphs.

But Francis did not remark on his subterfuge—only gathered spit and let it drip down, over his bottom lip, to a place where James could feel but not see. “You will.”

“Oh, Christ, you are a terror,” James managed, dropping back onto the sheets. He turned his cheek into the coolness of the pillow. Francis pressed forward once more, and this time James’ arse yielded easily. He was slicker with Francis’ spit alone than any oil or grease they’d used before.

James shut his eyes and surrendered to Francis’ tongue, which darted to and fro in a facsimile of fucking. For how long Francis kept up, he could not say—perhaps ten minutes, perhaps hours. His body, speared open, had turned to jelly. When he could stand no more, he shoved his heels into Francis’ back and pleaded with him.

In return, Francis lapped at him with the patience and care he showed ship’s boys on their first voyage. “You’re doing so well, James.” He laid a forearm across James’ hips and pinned him there. “That’s it.”

The muscles in James’ thigh trembled, and he bucked off the bed. He thought of Francis’ sure hands, weathered by the same sailor’s callouses as his own; his fine, silken, thinned hair; the charming aperture in his teeth. He thought of being devoured thus by a man who loved him well, a man whose soul was tethered irreparably to his own. He covered his eyes. Then, with a fractured gasp and a paroxysm that reached down to his toes, he finished.

Reason returned to James in fits and starts. Blinking, he rubbed at his face. Francis was sat up with James’ left foot in his lap, rubbing circles around the bone of his ankle. He looked inordinately pleased.

As soon as he had regained speech, James grit out, “Who?”

“I’m sure I don’t take your meaning.” Francis’ eyes glittered.

James, who had made an art out of such evasive flirtations, was nearly impressed. “Miss Cracroft?” he ventured, roiling with envy. The tableau swiftly took shape: Francis knelt like a penitent before her, cocooned in her capacious skirts, licking her to completion. “She encouraged this?”

Francis shrugged.

“Doxies?” James demanded, feeling awfully like a wife taking her miscreant husband to task. “Banbridge girls? Your mates on _Fury_? Tom Blanky?” Francis’ brow climbed higher and higher as James’ pitch grew progressively shrill.

“Peace, James. You will work yourself into a proper lather, and your constitution has not yet recovered.” Francis chewed his tongue, trying—James could see—to stifle his laughter. A grin burst forth anyway.

James loved and loathed him in equal measure. “My God, man. A warning would have been courteous,” he said, nestling into the sheets.

Francis smirked at him. “But you wouldn’t moan half as prettily for me otherwise.”

“Oh, off with you. Fetch me a rag.” James sighed and stretched his arms high above his head, relishing the loose-limbedness that accompanied satiation. “A cup of tea, too, if you would.”

Careless of the spend drying on James’ belly, Francis leant over and kissed his forehead. “And after that, I’ll have you again.”


End file.
